What Makes a Leader Great?

Today was the official memorial service at the RACC for University of Albany President Kermit Hall. The service was held in the room where their basketball team’s big victory happened last spring.

I have honored the memory of many people now departed from our midst. I know that there can be a magnification effect that looks at the best and overlooks the least. But President Hall has so much to appreciate about him, an hour seemed like not quite long enough even though we heard from 11 different speakers sharing their reflections, each building on the last.

As I listened, I felt the urge to write down some of his qualities that were being praised. Without doubt, President Hall was born with qualities that made him a great institutional leader. As a minister who is also an institutional leader, I’m intensely interested in what makes someone a strong institutional leader. What can I learn from great leaders that can help shape my leadership?

Here is what I heard that stuck in my mind and moved my pen.

SUNY Chancellor John Ryan used a great metaphor for the work of preparing an institution for growth. Bamboo takes several years of care without much growth, as much as four years. All that time the bamboo is building an impressive root structure. Then in the fifth year, the bamboo tree will shoot up eighty feet. It was comforting to think the groundwork done in the last 18 months will yield great results down the road.

President Hall led by example. He took the 100,000 dollars set aside for celebrating his new Presidency and started a scholarship fund for students, adding 10,000 of his own money. That fund now is approaching 3 million dollars.

On September 11th, 2001, he walked into the office of Dr. Stan Albrecht at Utah State University and said, “Stan we need to be with our students.” They went to the student union and began talking with, comforting and counseling students. President Hall had a pastoral sense of genuinely caring for both faculty and students. This care was grounded in a deep respect for those he served as their leader.
As a leader he surrounded himself with the best and the brightest he could find. And he challenged them, keeping them hopping by delegating authority and responsibility, allowing people to think for themselves and come up with innovative solutions. He was the consummate networker and collaborator, knowing how to leverage relationships to forge new projects – “he cared about what we can do together.”

I will take to heart one of his mottos: “start training replacements so the legend will continue.” Leaders in my congregation can be well served by this advice.

He was called a high performance leader with persistence. “He didn’t adhere to the speed limit of life.”

And he was courageous as well. At times he did take strong stands, “because it was the right thing to do.”

The most powerful story told about his persistence was a bird watching trip in Northern Florida. Before leaving on the trip he excitedly talked about the eleven species of birds one could see in this area. The group had a delightful time seeing many unusual birds. Lunchtime approached and 10 of the eleven species had been seen. What they had not yet seen was an American Bald Eagle occasionally seen in the area. Dr. Hall wanted to stay a little longer and see one. They waited 5 minutes. And then 10 minutes. No birds in sight. Dr. Hall kept scanning the sky with his binoculars. People were getting impatient with him as 20 minutes had rolled by. Finally he said, I recognize that speck in the far distance as and Eagle! Sure enough, not only was it an Eagle, the bird flew toward them and swooped quite close to them. It was almost as if he, through sheer will power, manifested that bird to come to him!

The final lesson in leadership I heard was the most moving. Dr James Anderson has a talent with the spoken word. Using the refrain “A man for all seasons, given to us for a reason,” he framed his remarks. President Hall’s humility was a key to his success as a leader. He allowed people to laugh with him and at him. He wasn’t embarrassed by his first name, Kermit. He was known to wear a Kermit the Frog lapel pin. As Dr. Anderson had done the day after Kermit’s death at the hastily organized service, he moved the audience quoting from Kermit the Frog’s beautiful song, the Rainbow Connection:

Who said that every wish
Would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Kermit thought of that
And Kermit believed it
And look what it’s done so far
What’s so amazing
That keeps us star gazing
What so we think we might see

Someday we’ll find it
That Rainbow Connection
The lovers the dreamers and me

Good bye Kermit. Thanks for the love you shared with us. Thanks for your example and your legacy. May we find in your example the Spirit of Life that lives in all of us.